Framed Ghosts
by Renee Lytle
Summary: Dean takes a break from studying lore and is confronted with the memories of those who've died (Ellen, Jo, Benny, Kevin, and Charlie). Luckily Castiel is there to comfort him.


Sam had printed and framed all their group photos. There were only six of them but they seemed to take up a lot of space on the bunkers' wall.

Tired of reading through lore Dean had turned around in the swivel chair only to be met with all of those dead, smiling faces. So he'd gotten a bottle of whiskey and was tipped back in the chair, taking swigs straight from the bottle.

Dean didn't have a favorite, they were all so different, and if he had to pick one to travel back to, he wouldn't pick at all. He wanted all of them back. All of the people in these photos besides him, Sam, and Cas were dead.

He wanted them all back because each loss had left a small empty space inside him. All of those empty holes added together and Dean felt like more than half of him was lost with them.

The picture on the left was the first group photo that Dean had ever taken in his adult life. There were some old photos of him with friends and family as a young child but after Mary had died they just hadn't taken pictures anymore. Sam still had some photos of him and his college friends; they were always smiling, alway out at bars or taking weekend road trips. But this was the first ever group photo Dean had been in since he was a kid.

It was taken in Bobby's old house in the study. Cas was on the fringes, not yet used to being part of a loving family, and he was smiling awkwardly like he'd never done it before. Thankfully Sam had pulled him closer right when the camera clicked so he'd know he was in good company. Sammy was always really good at the supporting, loving thing.

Bobby was in front because at that point he was in a wheelchair. Ellen was standing next to Bobby without touching him. She was so afraid of getting close to people and she already gotten so close to all of them. Of course, she'd already been close to her daughter Jo. So close and so terrified for her that she'd given herself several ulcers before they'd both sacrificed themselves.

Dean takes another pull from the bottle and forces it down. He's had a lot already but he doesn't want to stop and he can feel sadness starting to constrict his chest. He looks back at the photo again and smiles bitterly at Jo's expression. Always trying to one-up a Winchester she had glared menacingly at the camera like it was a vamp she was about to destroy. But her hand resting lightly on Bobby's shoulder gave her away—she could kick all of their asses from here to hell and back but she couldn't control how much she cared.

Then there was Dean himself between Sam and Jo, trying to look detached. Trying to look as if that hadn't been one of the happiest days of his life.

Before looking at the next picture he takes another pull at the bottle but not as much as before, he didn't want to pass out on the chair again and get a kink in his neck.

The picture to the right hadn't been taken long after that first group photo but by then Ellen, Jo, and Bobby had died. This picture showed just Sam and Dean with Kevin Tran and his mom. There's dark circles under Kevin's eyes but he still has the biggest smile of all. He must've just had a breakthrough on the tablet or maybe he'd actually started going insane. They all looked pretty crazy in the photo but all their smiles were genuine.

The next photo only had two people in it: Dean and Benny drinking beers, laughing and telling war stories on Baby's trunk. Dean closes his eyes against the sting of tears but after a moment of pushing it all down he opens them and leans forward a little bit. This time the drink he takes is a little bigger and he takes yet another before looking at the next photo.

This one brings the hot pressure of tears back almost instantly. It's him and Sam and Charlie dressed up in their finest larping gear. Charlie's hair was short but still the most unnatural red color Dean had ever seen. His feelings of love toward her were only rivaled by those he had for Sam—she was the sister he'd never known he'd needed.

Despite the fact that the people in their lives were known to show up again, back from the dead, or from other worlds, he knew in his heart that it would never be the same. Even having their mom back hadn't been everything he'd expected. Things weren't meant to come back from beyond death. The stain left by death could never be shaken—it followed in your footsteps and breathed into your ear at night.

They would never truly get these people back. Did they even have each other anymore? Sam still repressed everything that had happened to him in the cage. One of these days he wouldn't be able to hold it in anymore and then what would happen? Would he break completely?

And Cas. Cas who had been to every burning corner of hell and still managed to believe that humans would do the right thing in the end, even if they screwed everything up along the way. The angel still didn't talk about what they'd done to him after he'd gone against heaven's orders to help them almost a decade ago. He didn't talk about how much pain he'd gone through while carrying leviathans inside his soul. And he'd even gotten angry when Dean tried to ask him about what happened after they all thought Dean had died going to destroy the darkness.

What were they still doing here? They shouldn't be alive. He shouldn't be alive.

He feels a heavy hand press into his shoulder. Cas is crouching in front of him with his hand on the exact place where there was still a faint scar from the angel dragging him from the pit. Dean stares down at the bottle because he doesn't want look at Cas. The floor and the bottle blur and he closes his eyes to keep dizziness at bay.

"Dean." Cas' rumbling voice always had a calming and reassuring effect on him. Almost instantly he relaxes and his hold on the bottle ceases. Cas grabs it right before it hits the floor with his free hand and then sets it a little ways away. His hand never leaves Dean's shoulder and its squeezing gently now.

"No one's meant to live this many lives. It's too much." Dean's voice cracks but the tears remain behind his eyes, that is, until he looks at Cas crouched in front of him. His brows are scrunched together and his mouth is turned down at the corners but his eyes are fixed so intently on Dean that he can't look away. He's expecting to see pity, after all, he did find Dean in a state of drunkenness much too often these days, but instead all he sees is sadness and understanding. It's the understanding that breaks him.

As soon as the tears start to fall and his face twists in pain he tries to pull away but Cas pulls him into his chest. For a moment Dean wants to back away from this but his chest is so heavy it feels like it's going to burst open and Cas is so damn solid and here and alive that he grabs some of Cas shirt—Dean's Led Zeppelin shirt—in his hands and sobs.

The three of them would never be the same. His family would never truly come back. "I couldn't save them then and I can't do it now," Dean says when he starts to feel empty and light headed.

Cas leans back but doesn't let go of him. He thinks for just a moment before saying, "you've got it wrong Dean. You protected them as best you could then and they don't need saving now."

Dean opens his mouth to speak but he can feel the walls forming around him again. He feels like reaching for the bottle but Cas' warmth makes him want to just pass out instead.

"They completely skinned me several times in heaven the first time I ever helped you and Sam." Dean's heart leaps to his throat but the rest of him stills and he looks into Cas' eyes. "They put binding spells on Jimmy's body so I couldn't leave and save him the pain." He takes a shuttered breath and swallows loudly. "But the worst part was they'd lift the binding spell just enough so my true form could heal Jimmy's body and then they'd shove me back in and start all over. Jimmy may have physically died at the mouth of hell but his soul was nothing but a wraith after heaven was done with us."

A few tears slide down the angels cheeks but he doesn't look away from Dean. "It's unfair I think, to ask for ones openness when you can't be open yourself. So," Cas says as his eyes finally look away to the floor. "You don't need to do it now but please talk to me. You can't let it all consume you in silence."

Cas stands and offers him a hand. Dean looks at it and then up at his best friend. Before taking the angel's outstretched arm he leans over and picks up the bottle, setting it down onto the table. When Cas pulls him up the room tilts and Dean is suddenly leaning heavily into Cas' body. Then he's being half-carried to his room.

It reminds him of a night with Bobby years back after they'd gone for victory drinks at the roadhouse. There's was also a night with Charlie and her larping friends that ended with each of them laughing and leaning on the other. Dean is smiling when Cas guides him to sit on the bed and he actually chuckles when he sees the angel's brow crease in confusion.

"Did I miss something?" He asks.

"I have some pretty epic stories if you can stay up to hear them."

Cas gives him a small, crooked smile and pulls a chair up next to the bed. "Lucky for you angels don't sleep."


End file.
